Red R o s e s
by Arigatou Sheitarou
Summary: AU, FateNanoha. She felt Hayate’s hand on her shoulder but she shrugged it off and let out a laugh that belonged to someone who had lost it all once, had been tempted by having it waved under her nose, and had then had it ripped away from her again.
1. Prologue

**R e d **_R o s e s_

"_Lights out, and you go home,  
And you feel so, all lone…  
'Cos your dog died and your girl left,  
But you won't cry, you won't cry… _

_Are you alive? I wanna know…  
Need some helping, letting go…  
Are you alive? Need the rain  
to wash these blues away…_

_It's been almost six months,  
And you haven't been outside…  
I got a number for this great shrink…  
He'll put you right, put you right…_

_Are you alive? I wanna know…  
Need some helping, letting go…  
Are you alive? Need the rain  
to wash these blues away…_

_So you haven't really slept in three whole days…  
Your home is a jungle and you mind is a maze…  
You got bloodshot eyes and a shirt full of stains…  
And now all you do is pop a pill, close your eyes,  
Take a sec until the pain dies,  
But it won't heal what you feel inside.  
Jekyll's dead, say hello to Mr. Hyde…"  
-Are You Alive, by Technicolour_

**Prologue**

In the beginning, there was light. A small flicker, not strong enough to be called a flame. Its crawl was slow and its faint glow was like that of the approaching dawn, bittersweet in its beauty, its vanity seducing her heart like poison. This light, so similar to the early stages of sunrise, was not a symbol of birth and renewal nor was it a sign of happiness and satisfaction, or any other emotion considered fickle in her eyes. Was it hope, you may ask? No, she was not stupid enough to hope for something so impossible.

The tiny flicker of light was something much more destructive and painful. It spread throughout her whole body like a toxin she could not identify, and therefore find a cure. A toxin so powerful it harmed her physically and ate her whole. An emotion both destructive and agonizingly painful.

Love.

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"Life isn't fair."

Those words were spoken by a girl who should've had everything but instead had had nothing except a mother who beat her and a twin sister who could not do anything about it.

"No. It's not."

It was a silent agreement, a statement made in recognition of something infinitely less tangible than any other truth or revelation they had ever had as twins.

"Wouldn't your life be so much easier if I had never been born?"

The girl who was cracked like fragile glass looked at her twin sister and was met with a sharp, silencing glare.

"Don't ever say that again."

The girl smiled a crooked, heartfelt smile as she leaned against her sister to watch the sun rise. She never again mentioned this fact aloud.

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The girl on her way to breaking had her eyes closed as she faced the sky, her arms at her sides. The rain tasted like cold metal, and it sent small shivers running down her spine. Sometimes she felt as though she had been born blind and that was the reason why her vision of the world was flawed.

"…_the death of a very special person to us all. Alicia Testarossa was a very bright child and…"_

Her eyes opened slowly, her ears tuning in and out to the words that were being said by the eulogist. Eyes that should've been beautiful were the color of wine and contrasted intensely with the blonde hair that was matted lightly to the girl's pretty face. Her eyes noticed nothing beyond the rain hitting the ebony coffin.

"…_one of the best people around. I am sure that her sister would like to say a few words, so I'll leave her to it."_

A light nudge made her look away from the coffin and turn her dazed eyes upon a girl with hair of brown and eyes of slate blue.

"_Fate…they want you to say something."_

She was barely aware of the chalk white faces of all those people, the people who quietly grieved for her twin, whose eyes held pity for the seventeen year old girl who was now alone. They all expected her to say something meaningful, to say something that would do her sister justice.

With her eyes closed, she brought the red rose to her lips, kissing it softly before tossing it into the grave. Those were the only words that she could offer.

She turned on her heels and walked through the rain, past the graves of people she had never known and towards the empty house that awaited her.

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"What is this?"

The nearly broken girl watched as a tiny puppy with reddish brown fur attempted to climb her pants. It barked and wagged its tail, and the girl couldn't help but lean down and pick it up. She held it gingerly in her hands.

A tentative voice spoke up and she found herself face to face with the girl with the eyes of slate blue.

"I thought…you might need some company…" It was a soft whisper, and it was clear that the girl's intention wasn't to hurt her.

"Why are you here?" Her voice was cold, as was her gaze. "Alicia's dead. You have no reason to be here."

The other girl flinched visibly, but she stepped forward, a hand stretching out to touch the puppy's head.

"She was my best friend…and you're her sister. And that means…you may as well be my sister too." The girl's eyes were teary, but she shrugged and continued her nonchalant façade. "Fate…I know we aren't…friends…but we could be."

The sad girl's eyes flickered to the floor as her heart wrenched violently in her chest. It suddenly felt harder to breathe, as though the air had become thick syrup. Her sister's best friend watched her while biting her lower lip, and her eyes held hints of knowledge behind the wall of water that would begin to fall regardless of her answer.

"Close the door on your way out." She said, and her voice was impossibly soft.

She gently placed the puppy in the other girl's hands and walked away, into the room she had always shared with her sister. The hole in her chest clawed at her and burned at the edges as the sound of the door closing echoed in her ears. She slid down to the floor and concentrated on holding the pieces together; she concentrated on keeping her head above the water. The pain intensified.

She was dragged under.

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Black. The image of nothing. The representation of darkness.

Her canvas was incomplete and she watched it with empty eyes. It depicted her current state of mind, and she was positive that no other colors were needed. This was the only thing she could hand in for her art project. This would be the grand masterpiece that her teacher would grade. A black, empty canvas lacking iridescence and feeling.

"_Why is your painting empty, Testarossa?"_

She wanted to argue that it was not empty, that it was simply the image of incompleteness, of nonexistence. But she could not argue, because looking inside the painting would only remind her of the hollowness she was undergoing, of the intensity of the pain she felt. She could not put that into words, much less a painting. She wondered if maybe it would've been better if she painted the scene inside her mind, the scene that involved her waking from a violent slumber, reaching out into nothingness, _darkness_, and knowing that she would never feel that _other presence_ there again.

Or should she have taken a blank, white canvas, written her name on it and handed it in?

Would that better explain the horrible emptiness, the terrible loneliness that made her have nightmares?

After all, was white not the absence of color?

Or was it black, the image and solid representation of oblivion?

"_Well, you see, it is discussed that maybe both colors…"_

But it had been a rhetorical question. She did not need an answer to know that darkness was the only thing that would keep her from going insane. Because if she had chosen white, it would have reminded her that _Alicia's_ favorite color was white and that she would never again see her twin sister grinning at her while wearing a rather girly white ensemble and pink ribbons to match her best friend.

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"Fate…"

Her voice was the only one that made sense within the chaos of the classroom. How was it that in the eight years they had studied together, it was now, after her sister had died, that she finally had the urge to speak to her? She did not turn to look at the eyes of slate blue and instead continued to move her pencil across the blank page and refocused on her drawing. Or was she drowning, instead? It felt the same to her.

"Fate…" Her hand froze in place as the voice continued to insist. "I need to talk to you."

She looked up slowly, realizing that she could not escape this. Her chest constricted and there was suddenly no doubt in her mind that she was drowning instead of treading water.

"What is it?" She asked, and pain shot throughout her heart, or the space her heart would have been had it not been cracked and broken, simultaneously.

The slate blue eyes that looked back at her saw through her. And within them she could see pain of their own.

"Here," the girl said, and smiled a painful looking smile. "It's…for you."

The brown haired girl held up a red rose, much like the one she had tossed into Alicia's grave. It had been Alicia's favorite flower, _her_ favorite flower as well, and it had been one of the most precious things they had had in common. Her mouth was dry as she took the flower, and for once, she allowed herself to look into those pained eyes.

"Why, _Nanoha_?" It was a ragged whisper, and her eyes stung but she _could not_ cry.

"Because I miss her. And I want to get to know the only thing she left behind…because you were the most important thing to her." The girl blinked rapidly to hold back the flood of tears, "And because I realize that I haven't been the best person to you in the past."

As she held the fragile thing between her hands, the rose's thorns dug into the palm of her hand and pierced the skin lightly. She slid back in her chair and moved away from the desk, letting the rose fall to the ground. Tiny drops of blood followed its course. Eyes of wine looked up to meet slate blue. It was asphyxiating, and all she wanted to do was leave the other girl standing there, like she knew she should have done in the first place.

But then the girl dropped to her knees and grasped the hem of her shirt, gasping as the tears caught up with her and made her cry out. Her face twisted into an expression of agony, but she let the girl sob into her shirt without saying the words she wanted to shout at her.

"I'm sorry, Fate…! I'm so, so sorry…!" It was a fierce rant, not interrupted by their classmates or by their teacher, who stared at them in blatant concern.

She grabbed the other girl's face to make her meet her eyes. So that they could see each other's agony and learn from it.

"Okay…" She said, and her voice was husky with the pain she felt from being near_ this girl_, "Okay… we're friends…please…just _stop_…"

_Stop._

And she pushed the other girl away from her, stood up and left the classroom. Once she had made it home, she pulled her black canvas out from under her bed and scrambled to get her oils. She chose the colors red and green. Her portrait would no longer be empty. It would have the addition that would change her life.

A small, imperfect rose with thorns still wetted by blood.

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In the beginning, it was an awkward friendship.

The girl with the slate blue eyes invaded her lonely house as frequently as she had when her sister had been alive. She was reluctant to let her in, to become her friend, because it was so much harder to look her in the eyes and be reminded of her sister than to walk away and reject her friendship. She did not want the other girl around, did not want to feel the horrible things the other inspired within her. She did not want to continue pretending that she was treading water instead of drowning.

So then, when exactly was it that being with Nanoha became easier than breathing?

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She held the little ball of fur in her hands and watched as it uncertainly looked at the ground. It did not seem to like the distance and huddled back as best as it could.

It looked back into her eyes. It barked.

"Arf…" She said suddenly. "…Your name is Arf…"

It barked again and wagged its tail. She blinked as the warmth of another person invaded her side. The girl with the pretty face and the slate blue eyes leaned her head on her shoulder and looked at the puppy. She stiffened as the other girl laughed softly.

"You're not very original with names, are you, Fate?" The girl asked, and her breath was warm on her ear.

"…It suits her." She mumbled in response, turning her head away, a bit uncomfortable.

The nearly broken girl moved away from the other and sat down on her couch in front of the Christmas tree. It had been entirely the other girl's idea. The brown haired girl sat down beside her and watched as the puppy walked along their legs, curiously sniffing and barking all the while wagging its tiny tail. It suddenly tripped and sprawled on its legs. Fate gently helped it back up, a soft smile on her face.

"You should smile more often…" The slate blue eyed girl suddenly said, "It becomes you."

To this, the sad girl looked up sharply, her stomach deciding to perform strange little jerks and flips. Nanoha's eyes were trained on the puppy, and laughter was bubbling out of her mouth as if it were the most natural thing in the world. It was harder to breathe all over again and the sensation that she was inhaling syrup became more apparent.

But this time, it was for a completely different reason.

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"Fate!"

She turned to watch the girl with hair of brown run towards her, carrying the piece of paper that had clearly been the cause of the girl's happiness. She was not prepared for when the girl threw her arms around her neck and hugged her so tightly it felt as though the hole in her chest did not exist.

"I got accepted!"

The sad girl smiled Nanoha's favorite crooked smile and hugged her back.

"I'm happy for you…" She said softly.

The brown haired girl leaned back and grinned widely, although her eyes contracted with pain. For a moment, Fate wondered how it felt to look at her face and know that it had been the same face of the person who had died seven months ago, the person who was your best friend. Sometimes she asked herself why the other girl bothered to torture herself like this. She pondered what it felt like to look at someone's face and know that it wasn't the same person you shared all of your secrets with, but still be unable to help feeling that tiny, illogical spurt of hope that maybe it had all been some scary dream.

The edges of the hole in her chest burned fiercely.

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"Fate…do you think we could share the apartment since we're going to the same place?"

The eighteen year old girl froze in what she was doing, her heart sputtering stupidly for a few seconds. She looked up from her book and looked into the eyes of the girl whom she now considered her best friend. She felt Arf lie down on her feet under the table. The other girl fidgeted and blushed under her stare and Fate quickly turned her gaze down to her book, not really seeing anything.

"It would just be for a little while…I just…I want to stay somewhere familiar." The other girl attempted to explain herself, a little nervously.

"But you've never even been to the apartment…" She replied, her voice soft like it always was.

"I-I know." Nanoha admitted sheepishly, "But you're someone familiar and I'd rather stay with you than in a crowded dorm room. I'd obviously help with the rent…and help you clean and look after Arf…"

Fate's gaze softened, her hands trembling because of reasons she could not identify.

"Sure…We can share…"

The other girl sighed and smiled at her in relief.

"I love you, Fate…"

Fate looked up again sharply, but the other girl's eyes were under the table where Arf had apparently decided to begin licking her legs. She felt an intense surge of affection for the other girl and wondered how she had ever lived without her. She finally understood why her sister had loved this girl so much.

And though she could not identify it at the time, _that_ emotion stirred deeply in her heart, making her feel closer to being whole than she had felt since the day Alicia had died.

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A sheet of paper plus a paper shredder equals shredded paper. Now, imagine a heart in the paper's place.

Their friendship arrived to the point in which nothing could shake its foundations. At least, nothing from the outside. And as with all great cities, stability within was necessary. Theirs was stable to a point, but then things became increasingly complicated. First, it had been on Fate's part, her feelings becoming too powerful to ignore. And then the ripple began. It started out with a meeting, new people coming into their lives, and almost as if they had known each other before, they became fast friends.

And then there was the rock. The cause for everything. The stone tossed into the pond, its ripples affecting everything and everyone in its path.

And who could this be but a young man named Yuuno?

This was the _beginning _of the **end**.

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The eighteen year old girl in her freshman year of college read the papers in her hands, trembling with barely suppressed fury. The brown haired girl beside her watched her wearily, for she had never seen Fate Testarossa lose her calm as she was now. Before she could ask what was wrong, the sad girl tore the papers to shreds and stuffed them inside a trash can, and the silence that followed after was, not for the first time, unnerving.

"What is it, Fate?" She asked, wondering what could have happened to make the girl so angry.

The blonde's icy gaze turned to her and she nearly regretted having asked anything at all.

"My mother."

And for Hayate, those two words were enough.

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"Arf! Come back!"

The brown haired girl with the blue eyes tore after the dog who barked joyfully at having her master's best friend chase her. They resembled dancing puppets in the middle of the storm of leaves that were carried by the wind, the product of an early fall. The nearly broken girl sat with a book in hand under the cover of a tree. She laughed softly as she watched the object of her affection pout after having tripped on her dog. The little devil's spawn wagged her tail as she bounded over to her master and licked her hands eagerly.

"Arf…" She whispered, rubbing the dog's head. "You don't do that to Nanoha…"

But she wasn't angry. She could never be angry with that dog.

"You know…" Nanoha huffed as she stumbled to sit down beside her, "That dog of yours could kill me one day…"

Fate smiled at her and said, "I don't think _our_ dog could hurt a fly."

The other girl grinned back and ran a hand through the dog's fur. And that was the moment where everything changed.

"Excuse me…" A voice murmured almost shyly. "I think you dropped this…"

Two pairs of eyes looked up to see a young man, quite possibly their age, holding up a necklace that Fate recognized as Nanoha's. The sad girl realized that it was the very same necklace she had given the girl for her most recent birthday. With a dull roar, the hole in her chest gnawed at her.

"Oh!" The blue eyed girl stood up quickly and took the necklace from the boy's hand. "Thank you! It must've fallen when I tripped…"

The young man with the blonde hair and emerald eyes smiled.

"It's no problem at all…I'm…my name is Yuuno Scrya." He seemed to stumble across the words, and at that moment, Fate felt as though she had been slapped.

Every alarm in her body screamed danger. Every siren in her head told her to interrupt the conversation and drag Nanoha away. Her fingers shook and they gripped her book so tightly it felt as though it might break under the pressure.

"My name's Nanoha. Takamachi Nanoha." The brown haired girl's eyes were shining, and she smiled that smile, _her _smile, as she looked at the awkward young man whom she knew was interested in her. "This is my best friend, Fate Testarossa."

Best friend. Not protector. She was not, nor would she ever be, anything remotely romantic. And this boy had a chance at what she would surely fail at.

It felt as though a giant band aid had been roughly torn off her chest. The hole shot flashes of pain slicing throughout her whole body.

"Hi." She said, trying to seem friendly when the only thing she felt towards the boy was an intense dislike that had sprouted from seemingly out of nowhere.

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As the weeks passed, Yuuno and Nanoha's relationship evolved to the point in which being around them was like trying to breathe underwater. The girl who was cracked like glass could not be anywhere around them, not if they were together, because the looks and the words were too much for her to bear. The only one who seemed to notice this was a girl by the name of Signum, who was much too observant and perceptive for her own good.

"_What's wrong with you, Testarossa?"_

Nothing. Nothing was wrong with her. People needed to stop asking.

"_Why are you so broken?"_

But she was not broken; she was spiraling down a road with a dead end, and once there, she would jump off the only cliff she had. Once she hit the bottom, she would shatter upon impact.

That was when she would be broken.

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The day before her nineteenth birthday was the day that Arf died.

A car had barreled at too high a speed around the corner of the street where they lived. Arf had been playing with the ball Fate had tossed. It fell into the road.

_Tick…tock…tick…screech…_

_Crunch._

Those were the sounds going through Fate Testarossa's head when it happened. Another large fissure appeared in her heart.

She would break soon.

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That night, she dreamt of her sister for the first time in months.

She was standing on a cliff that looked strangely familiar and was overlooking the ocean. She was smiling that beautiful smile of hers; the smile she always wore when they used looked at each other and somehow know what the other was thinking. Her eyes of light wine danced as her fair hair fluttered in the wind, and for a second, Fate thought she was looking at an angel. That had always been the form that Alicia had taken in her eyes.

Her sister raised her left hand, and in that hand a red rose was held. She brought the rose to her lips, and kissed its petals gently, almost as if it held something infinitely precious to her. Her eyes flickered up, and then she smiled again, but this smile was crooked, and wrong, and broken. There was something in her sister's eyes that she had never seen before and it sent a chill crawling down her spine.

Her sister turned to the edge of the cliff, and her eyes seemed to grow darker, and her body seemed to grow paler, a shadow haunting her with a hand on her throat. She smiled again, a twisted, warped, wreck of a smile that sent flares of agonized recognition racing throughout her body.

_Don't._ Her mind formed the words, but her mouth could not. _Alicia, don't jump._

Those eyes were a furious wine now, intense, pained, and so very broken. They laughed at her, mocked and scorned her, and they were not her sister's eyes anymore.

Horrified recognition settled in her stomach.

Her reflection crushed the rose in her hand and, with a bloody palm that smelled of dead roses, she jumped and watching her fall was like watching an angel die.

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She spent the day of her birthday inside her room, sitting on the floor with her arms crossed over her chest. She felt as though she was spinning around in circles, and the walls were moving in a precarious case of vertigo. She slumped onto her side, her right temple hot against the cold tiles of the floor. She could not cry, no matter how much she wanted too. Her stomach felt as though it were full of liquid lead, hot and about to bubble up her throat at any minute.

"Fate…"

It was the voice she had been missing for days. Because in the past few months, the girl had been too busy with Yuuno to care about the best friend she had left behind. There was a bitter taste in her mouth, but it was gone as soon as she heard the next few words.

"Fate, I'm staying here today…with you…"

"Yeah, Fate…I'm sorry about your dog…We'll stay with you as long as you need it."

The bitter taste in her mouth returned and she felt like dying.

"It's okay, Nanoha…Yuuno…she was just a dog, after all. Go on and enjoy your date like you planned."

_Just a dog._

The words she spoke were a contradiction to everything she believed in and was feeling at the time.

"…Are you sure?"

Yes.

Because even Takamachi Nanoha had forgotten that her birthday was that day.

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The letter had been written carefully and concisely. She had never been one to dawdle or waste those few words that came from her heart. She had poured every emotion she had ever felt for the girl into the letter, and she could only hope, however faintly, that her feelings might be reciprocated. She had bought a bouquet of red roses, because they were the only ones that could ever express the intensity of the feelings that resided in her heart. Red roses, because they could stand for so much more than just love and all things sappy.

But then she heard the words that made her feel as though her head had been repeatedly smashed against the marble floors of Hayate's apartment.

"Yuuno's in love with me…and I think I might be in love with him."

Oh. _Crack._ Wow. _Crack._ Congratulations. _Crack. _And the cracks would_ not stop._

She felt the thorns of the roses dig into her palm. The letter in her hand crumpled as it turned into a fist.

_How could she have been _so stupid?

She had no idea how she ended up outside in the furious rainstorm, standing on the cliff beside the beach that was used to cliff dive, or who it was that called her name. Before she knew it, she was tearing the letter to shreds, letting the pieces of paper flutter away. She ripped apart the roses, not caring that her hands were bleeding profusely, not caring that Hayate was only a few feet away, telling her not to despair, telling her that she would find love again. She was acutely aware of Nanoha's panicked gaze, watching from the doorway of Hayate's apartment because the other brown haired girl had asked her to stay behind.

She felt Hayate's hand on her shoulder but she shrugged it off and let out a laugh that belonged to someone who had lost it all once, had been tempted by having it waved under her nose, and then had it ripped away from her again.

The final crack had been made. She had reached her **DEAD END**.

The waves of pain that had only lapped at her before now reared up high and dragged her under.

She flung herself off the cliff.

**A/N: **_Right, so from now on, my comments will be made at the bottom of the page. Anyway, I can't really say much about this except that it's bound to be very depressing and very short. A happy ending is...I'll have to admit that it's a long shot, since I'm going to make Fate so fucked up you won't believe it. And...sorry, but, I'm afraid I'll be using ...foul language...in this story. Ah...makes me feel bad. I'll try not to use much of it, since I really don't like to say things like that..._

_And yes, if you're expecting me to write happy things, you're in for a long wait. I won't be writing happy things for a long while. Hah. My "muse" left me. _


	2. Ch 1: See the Degenerate

**R e d** _R o s e s_

**Chapter 1: **See the Degenerate

"_Knock, knock…are you alone?  
No one's out here and I was not followed.  
Love, love…you're already home.  
Party's over and you don't look so good._

_You find your way back down.  
And I'll keep the area clear…please clear the area.  
When you find your way back down…in one piece.  
Then I'll just be waiting here…right here._

_Low light…mercury morning…  
No need to stay as it's always nothing...  
But your eyes tell a whole other story…  
And I feel the weight of the world.  
You won't talk…You won't try…just move…  
It's too still in your sadness.  
Cry…give up…it's okay…  
You've just got to trust me._

_You find your way back down.  
And I'll keep the area clear…please clear the area.  
When you find your way back down…in one piece…  
Then I'll just be waiting here…right here._

_Slowly…darling…nobody means anymore to me than you  
If you're in…baby then I'm in (into this)…with you, always.  
Careful…close to the edge…(You're scaring me)  
Fall in to my arms….(away with it all)  
Fall…into love…love…_

_You find your way back down.  
And I'll keep the area clear…please clear the area.  
When you find your way back down…in one piece…  
Then I'll just be waiting here…right here._

_You find your way back down.  
And I'll keep the area clear…please clear the area.  
When you find your way back down…in one piece…  
Then I'll just be waiting here…right here._

_You find your way back down.  
Way back down,  
And I'll keep the area clear…please clear the area.  
When you find your way back down…in one piece…_  
_Then I'll just be waiting here…right here."  
-Clear the Area, by Imogen Heap_

There was a moment while she was underwater in which the broken girl felt completely at ease with herself. The freezing water had numbed everything that mattered, like she had guessed it would. The current tossed and pulled her as though she was a rag doll, and she did nothing to resist it. It felt nice to look at the world from a different perspective. The water made everything seem distorted and the darkness that enveloped her was strangely comforting. She was suffocating slowly and it felt no different from every other day. Drowning instead of treading water.

And there she was, doing so in the literal sense of the phrase.

If she could have laughed, she would have. The irony was so bitter that it left a foul taste in her mouth. And the pain suddenly flared, making her body convulse and her eyes widen, the numbness gone only to be replaced by a pain so intense and vicious, it felt as though she was in tatters. The cruelty of the situation left her mind swirling, scrambling to get back a hold on reality. She was thrashing, and then her head broke through the surface of the water, and every breath she took felt as though a thousand needles were stabbing her lungs. She let out an anguished gasp then, and her face crumpled into an expression of twisted agony, and she could not tell if her eyes were burning because of the salt in the water or if it was because of the sickening urge to cry.

A wave pulled her under and slammed her into the rocks.

Pain shot throughout her body, specifically the back of her head and the arm she had swung around to try and stop herself. She choked on water as she let out an involuntary cry, panic suddenly settling in as the instinct for self preservation took hold. But the pain she felt physically was nothing compared to the horror inside her.

As soon as her head broke the surface again and she had gasped for breath, her legs still kicking furiously beneath her, she let out a scream of such terrible sadness and despair, a scream that shattered everything, every lie and every mask she had ever presented to the world outside her. Her façade was smashed to pieces by the emotional torment that was held within that cry, and nearly twenty feet above her, the brown haired girl with the slate blue eyes felt her legs give way beneath her as she was faced with the fact that her best friend – _her dead best friend's sister_ – had been lying to her all along and she wasn't as happy as she had made herself out to be. _And she hadn't even seen the signs._

_Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe!  
Breathe! Breathe! Breathe! BREATHE!_

Hands cradled her, dragging her through the water. The life was fading from those eyes but they could barely make out long hair that looked a dark shade of pink in the darkness of the water. She was scarcely conscious when she arrived on shore, even less when she was dragged up towards dry sand. Blonde hair invaded her blurry vision and it seemed to wave at her mockingly and swirl in a distorted array of movements. The sky was blue, black, red, green, gray; instead of night, it was day; rather than cold, she felt unbearably hot. The moon was gone, then full, then red as though eclipsed by the earth's shadow. Instead of sadness, she felt happiness. Rather than panic, she felt at ease. There was no pain.

And suddenly, there _was_.

Something beat at her chest and shouted in her ears, pulling her back, shoving her in a direction that was directly opposite from her escape. Everything was torn into confusion, because she was being slapped and dragged, kicking and screaming, towards the pain. She wanted the exit, the peace, but something was taking her back towards the crippling pain. Bile rose up in her throat. Her head pounded. She was asphyxiating again.

With a strangled gasp, she coughed up water and slammed her head back into the ground. Everything was soft and warm –_not warm enough_ – in her hands. Sand slipped through her fingers. Almost instantly, her right hand began to burn. The back of her head began to ache. The voices all around her snapped back into focus.

"Fate!" Over and over. Over and over.

The name became her sister's.

"_Alicia!"_

_The wind was blowing and everything was spinning, transforming, warping into an indistinguishable array of colors. The blonde hair that had always been a shade darker than her own whipped around a beautiful face and brought out the hidden darkness in burgundy eyes that had always been a touch lighter than hers. She had never seen her twin sister look so tormented, standing –in her eyes teetering – on a ledge that opened out, above a paved road, and her skin was pale, her breaths shallow, and it felt as though she had been dying long before she actually did._

"_Alicia!" That raw cry was her own._

_Her hand stretched out, reaching out to her other half, her twin, the only one who had ever truly understood the pain and loss. But the angel smiled, ghostly, dead, unleashing a force, starting a chain reaction that could only end in tragedy._

"_Goodbye Fate." A cruel smile accompanied by a tortured whisper._

_And then the angel was falling – white falling like snow -, hands outstretched, beautiful, pale, glorious, mesmerizing in the way she seemed to be flying, and for a moment, the nearly broken girl thought her sister was an angel. But then, like a slap to the face, there was a thud, and she dropped to her knees, __looking over the ledge at the snow stained with red, and she saw a rose, blood, blood, a bloody rose, beautiful, pale, glorious, enticing her with everything, the eyes, once alive, now dead, a shout, anguished, her voice, beautiful, pale, glorious, white dress stained crimson, blonde hair matted with red, the angel, dead, not alive, dead, lifeless, beautiful, pale, glorious –_

"Fate!"

That voice…

"Fate! Stay!"

That horridly familiar voice…

"Fate! Not you! Not again! Not you!"

Hands on her face trying to see her eyes, to peer into her soul. But she did not want to see eyes of slate blue, peering back at her with the pain she knew she would see. Burgundy eyes rolled to the back of her head.

She saw darkness.

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"Why would you jump?"

The broken girl with the dead eyes and the wry smile looked back into those eyes of slate blue and felt as though she had been repeatedly stabbed across her chest. The hole flared and she found herself wrapping her arms around herself, trying to catch the breath that had escaped her as the pain reared up high and hit her like a slap to the face. Soft, warm hands were on her cheeks, but instead of bringing her comfort they brought her pain and she slapped them away, gritting her teeth as the edges of her eyes burned fiercely. But she did not cry. She never cried. She could not cry.

"It seemed like fun." She answered, and looked towards the emerald eyed boy that she wished so deeply would go away.

The girl with the eyes of slate blue let out a choked noise, and almost immediately, the boy beside her moved to comfort her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and drawing her into an intimate embrace. The burgundy eyed girl flinched as she was left breathless again; pain's grip on what was left of her heart so absolute that all she wanted to do was lose consciousness. Her head was spinning and she felt like sobbing tearlessly because her heart was already so bruised and battered, having already been shattered and stepped on continuously.

"Don't do this to me, Fate!" The girl shouted, furious and concerned, all at the same time, "Don't do this to me!"

"Don't do what?" She smiled again, but this time it was a cruel smile.

Cruel because she knew the brown haired girl had no idea of what _she_ was doing to _her_. Cruel because she wanted to forget everything that had happened in the past two years.

The other girl's eyes filled with tears and she shoved the boy away, grabbing onto to the sheets of her bed and gasping as the pain truly caught up with her. The broken girl was reminded of the pain of that day within the classroom and the red rose she had painted across the canvas immediately afterwards. Her hands shook.

"I don't ever want to lose you…" The girl whispered this almost breathlessly, as though it hurt too much to speak. "Not you, too…"

The irises of those heartbreaking burgundy eyes contracted sharply and she flinched involuntarily, thinking of her sister, her beautiful, benevolent sister, lying dead at the bottom of a grave, now a skeleton. Nausea took over her in painful waves. The image of a torn and bloody red rose burned fiercely in her mind.

"…Don't make me relive Alicia's death…"

Pain. Bright hot. Searing through her skin. She tasted blood.

"Don't you dare talk to me about Alicia, Nanoha…Don't you dare…You weren't there when she died…"

_You weren't there._

The brown haired girl's face twisted into a painful smile and her hands reached out to touch the broken girl's. But the burgundy eyed young woman withdrew them and looked away, her breaths shallow; the bandages on her arm slowly soaking with blood, the ones around her head making the area throb painfully. It was numb compared to how she felt inside. Every breath she took was torture. Every time she saw Nanoha's face felt as though someone were scraping with a spoon at the already raw wound inside her.

"I love you, Fate…please…don't die…"

Desperately, she clutched Nanoha's face and pulled it towards hers, and the force that connected their eyes was almost magnetic. It was so hard to breathe.

"Nanoha…" It was almost a whimper, a raw and desperate cry. Her voice was hoarse.

_Can't you see that you're the one who's killing me?_

Nanoha's eyes seemed to flicker for a second, back and forth, never leaving Fate's own. An emotion Fate could not recognize shimmered beneath the surface. The brown haired girl's pale skin felt hot underneath her palm.

"I…" The other girl whispered, and faltered.

A hand grabbed her hospital gown, fingers curling into a fist. Another tentatively rested on her thigh. She trembled.

"Fate…"

_So very hard to breathe_.

"Nanoha!" An intruding shout. Yuuno.

As if waking from a daze, Nanoha scrambled back, her eyes wide with fear, her hands shaking, and Fate's own falling into her lap, her lips quivering, her heart aching so severely it felt as though her lungs had been ripped away from her. She let her hair fall across her face, hiding her eyes. Her hands gripped the sheets tightly.

"Leave…" She whispered.

She felt one person hesitate and the other immediately start towards the door in an agitated pace.

"Fate…"

"I said, leave!" She shouted, looking back up to meet eyes of startled blue.

Tears pooled in those eyes. Fate could no longer stand to see them.

"Get out!"

She heard a strangled sob. And then she was alone.

Always and forever.

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Glass shards spinning within themselves. A dance of radiance and shadows cast by the transference of light, their translucent echoes tossing themselves against the wall. They waltzed patterns across cold stone one moment and the next they were gone, almost as though they had never been there at all. The resonance of a single moment within her tattered mind.

The broken child sat staring at the wall, wishing that the light and shadow would come back out to spin across the wall in patterns beyond her understanding. The darkness waited willingly, an obscure stain painted athwart stone. But no matter how long it waited, the brightness –_so very like the sun_ – did not return. And the gloom was fated to forever chase after it with no actual hopes of being saved.

"Why did you try to kill yourself, Fate?"

The blonde raised eyes that were naturally the color of blood –_like her sister's, like the crimson stain of roses, red roses with petals dry and broken – _and the hospital's psychiatrist flinched visibly at the darkness within that empty gaze, and he was frightened, terribly frightened of the girl before him.

"I didn't." Her voice was amused, but it sounded wrong. "I was simply…_having fun_."

_Such fun._

The tattered young woman said this and smiled as though she were enjoying the look on his face. But it was crooked, and twisted, and wrong in so many horrifying ways. The girl was an angel, a dead or dying angel, and she resembled a jagged piece of glass. The serrated shard of glass waiting to cut someone's throat. She bordered on the edge of hysteria.

"If you lie to me, I cannot help you. Don't you know how selfish you would be if you killed yourself?"

"I'm not lying."

Then why was it that she couldn't stop _smiling_?

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Words rang in ears that heard but did not listen.

"…_won't you, Fate?"_

Her brown haired companion eagerly kept up with her, helping her with the things she needed to get back inside the apartment she now lived in alone. The very battered girl slid her keys into the lock, the bandages on her arms and the back of her head straining painfully against bruised skin.

The door slid open.

The keys slid out of her grasp.

_Crash. _

_Crash and Burn._

The hole in her chest ripped open again and she clutched at her chest, staggering back, sounds rushing through her ears, resounding like the roars of furious animals, painting roses across her eyes, blotting out the sight, the pain, the emptiness. Echoes of laughter, the softness of teddy bears against her palms, raindrops caresses against her face, red roses delivered to her door, white gloves stained red with blood.

"Get out." She whispered, something struggling furiously against her eyes. "Get out…"

_I don't want to see you. I'll never want to see you._

Beside her, Hayate stiffened.

"Precia Testarossa…"

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"What are you doing?"

The girl with the eyes of slate blue bit her lower lip in a gesture that could only be considered nervous. She stopped what she was doing and looked into eyes of emerald which were glinting with apprehension.

"I'm packing."

"Why?"

The gentle boy's words held a hint of steel. His eyes were a reflection of hostility.

"Because I…I'm staying with Fate."

The name sent murderous chills up and down his spine. Because the boy was not stupid. He was not the type to let things go by unnoticed. And he certainly wasn't blind enough not to notice what the blue eyed girl certainly never had.

"Don't."

His voice broke because he knew that no matter what he said, he would always be second to that damnable girl with the burgundy eyes and the fake smiles that told of a bitter past. The blue eyed child paused and looked at him, eyes flashing.

"Why not, Yuuno? She's my best-"

In a bout of anger, the boy knocked over a chair and marched right up to the girl.

"She wants things from you that you cannot give her!"

"If it means making her happy, I will give her anything and everything she needs!" She shouted, glaring at him with everything she had.

Desperately, he took her by the shoulders and said, "She's a danger to herself and therefore might be a danger to those around her! She's not safe!"

The blue eyed girl took a step back and wrenched herself from his grasp. Something inside of her burned at his words and she impulsively slapped him. His head jerked to the side, his eyes watering in shock as he realized that the girl whom he loved –_the girl he knew was loved by Fate_ – was furious with him for the first time since they had met.

"_How can you say that?!_ Fate would never hurt me or anyone else around her!"

The tears were falling freely now, the sudden hatred inside her lapping at her mind until all she could see was red.

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"Get out!"

Hands shaking uncontrollably. Jerky movements. Jagged, cut off breaths. A quiet mantra inside her.

_I don't want to see you, I don't want to see you, I don't want to see you, Idon'twanttoseeyouIdon't…_

"Get out!"

She was in hysterics, spiraling down through an abyss she had never before traversed.

"_Fate-chan?!"_

Sounds, a flurry of them, melding together, fusing into a single voice, a voice whose owner she could recognize even if she had been born deprived of all the senses. Traces of the barest warmth across her shoulders, spinning tops revolving across a black surface, an empty glass cast in sunlight, and the fingerprints of the last person to touch it still visible on stained glass.

"Please, just leave!"

She knew that girl. Yes, she did, brown hair, blue eyes, Yagami Hayate. So then why was she at a loss as to whom it was standing beside her, holding her things while she broke down?

"I refuse to leave without speaking with my daughter."

"_Alicia…mommy…mommy hates me…"_

"_No she doesn't! You shouldn't say things like that, Fate…!"_

After everything she had seen, been put through, after being strong for so long, she was now on the floor, heaving dry sobs, hugging her head to her knees because she did not know how to deal with the memories of _her_, of the way things were, of the way things changed when Alicia died, and of why her mother was there now, staring at her with the same eyes she always had-

"Get up, Fate."

-filled with hatred and scorn, and with a voice so cold it made her shudder to hear it.

Because even though she was now nineteen and aware of the intense, _pulsing_ hatred she held for her mother, the woman was still the only one who had the power to turn her into a whimpering little girl with a single word.

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The air was thick, syrupy as she ran half blindly up the stairs to the broken girl's apartment.

"Get out right now!"

She was stuck eight feet away from her door, feet frozen, held still by the incurable and inexplicable tension that had suddenly surrounded her.

"Not without speaking to my daughter! Unhand me, girl!"

She was still unmoving when the familiar faces stumbled into the hallway, was still stationary when the door was slammed shut and the lock was firmly clicked in place and both of the others looked at her as though she were a phantom from another life.

"N-nanoha…"

And that was all Hayate got the chance to say before Precia Testarossa had slapped her hard across the face and stalked off past the motionless child whom she knew had played with her eldest daughter while she was still alive. But then the woman paused and looked her straight in the eyes, those eyes which reminded the oblivious child so much of Fate, of Alicia, of blood and wine orchestrating a final dance.

"One day…" The woman's voice shook, "One day you will stop to think of all the mistakes you have made in your life and grasp that the worst ones were those you never recognized. One day, girl, you will stop to think and understand that the most dangerous mistakes are those you are unaware of making."

Words got stuck in her throat as she recognized the woman before her, as she saw the mother Alicia had always been afraid of. Smoke drifted into her nostrils as her best friend's –_both of them_ – childhood demon lit a cigarette and pressed it against her mouth. Her fingers lightly traced Nanoha's cheek before her hand fell limply at her side and she exhaled, a cloud of smoke drifting through parted lips. She took a step and faltered before looking out through glass doors at the cars parked on the sidewalk.

"One day you're going to look back and realize that you were the monster all along."

A whimper crawled out of the motionless child's throat.

"Fate…" Dread slithered around her heart like poison. "Fate…Fate…"

The immobile child was suddenly propelled forward, palms slamming against the door behind which the broken girl continued her dry weeping, and she twisted the door knob but it would not open. Slowly, sliding to her knees, the girl continued her quiet mantra of the broken child's name, and she pressed her cheek to the cold wood of the door, huddling closer, hands curling against her sides as she crossed her arms over her chest.

Every single breath she took felt as though it were a velvety heat, steam, and it made it difficult to breathe as she cried in short, gasping pants, and she realized that the last time she had cried like this had been when she was a child with no control over any of her emotions.

"Fate…please…_please_…"

_Open the door…_

And the door was opened, and her hands shot forward to catch herself before she fell onto the broken girl's shoes, and when she looked up and burgundy met blue, the self loathing she saw left her speechless.

"Have you come to see the degenerate?"

Her smile was crooked, with eyes filled with anguish and an emotion the oblivious child could finally recognize.

And so the enlightened child stood up with trembling hands, wrapping her arms around the other's waist while her cheek pressed against Fate's neck and the wine eyed child stiffened at the scent of the girl's hair, shuddering, heart stuttering in her chest as she felt herself falling apart.

"I'm here, Fate…I'm not leaving you…"

The earnest child was not prepared for when the broken girl's legs gave away, just as she was not prepared for the sudden sobs that filled her ears as the girl clung to her, and she closed her own eyes, her tears still seeping through, her heart squeezing frighteningly in her chest as she brushed her lips against Fate's forehead in an attempt to calm her down.

"It's okay…" She whispered, but it was not okay, it was far from okay and they both knew it. "It's okay…"

She let her hand slide through blonde hair, all the while realizing that this was the first time she had ever seen Fate cry.

_**A/N: **I'm not even going to try to apologize. I'm not going to say I'm going to be updating soon because that's what I said last time and life got in the way. Again. But yes, I'm still alive, and I remain firm in the fact that I will finish my stories. I'm just not sure when. Which really sucks. Because I'm starting college now and I'm probably going to be busy as hell. And yay. I've been on for a year now. ...Right. Well. Chapter dedicated to all the people who read it. Special regards to BPHaru, because you're probably wondering if I'm dead. I'm not. Thank you. Oh, I've got a recommendation. Ah, for all of you who are waiting for me to update, I would recommed reading stuff from Enraptured and Resonance of Angels, the latter of which is a good penpal of mine that can write well and has great ideas, original ones. _

_I'm really very sorry for the delays. I haven't even been able to speak to my beta, Hoppy-chan, or anyone else that I have contacted over these past months on the MGLN section. _

_:nudges reader towards review button:_

_I'm working on a oneshot right now, one which I hope to finish soon. I'll probably have that up in a few days, and then I'll be away for a week, probably, before I have the time to update again._


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